Connection
by Illusionary Ghost
Summary: A POV fic that sometimes has Kagome's thoughts, sometimes has Inuyasha's thoughts.
1. Default Chapter

April, 2, 2001.

(author's note: There's a lot more IY POV out there, so I thought it was time to introduce a Kagome one.. I was bored in class and was inspired.. I hope you like it.)

Connection

By Yashira

As I stand here looking at him sleep, his face and expression always so blank, I wonder exactly why I'm still here. Why do I stay here by his side when everything around me is falling down and crashing around my mind.

School… what's that now? My grades, my friends, and even my family are all half-forgotten memories. I should care... I should cry over all I've left behind. It's my life, it's what I was before… what I used to be, but I cannot touch it nor grasp it now. It's a part of me that I am losing. A part I can not reach and snap back into place as easily as a hairclip. I CAN'T! It will not respond to me. How can I reach it when it is dead, buried beyond recognition.

It is a blank, a voice that can not be crossed and will not be opened; it refuses to bulge. My past is being cut out from behind me and I am helpless. It falls down like the trees in front of the mighty lumberjack's axe and I wish, oh dear god, I wish I could grab at it, and pull it back to where it belongs… But no, something prevents me… someone prevents me. I am lost, drowning, everything is spinning. I don't know what to do. 

Where are my roots?

Where is my past?! 

My family?!

My Home!?

Staggering I stumble away from the fire, away from him and those that sleep nearby and run. Moving again. 'Running away' as he always so aptly puts it. _Running away_! How that word stings my ears?! To disappear and run off like some frighten little mouse with his tail between his legs. Oh god, is that what he sees me doing? Sigh, but it's the only thing I know how to do that won't hurt me. It's the only thing that keeps my heart, thoughts, and mind from breaking down and shattering to pieces. It's a safety precaution that stops everything from totally collapsing down on me. I am scared. I am deathly terrified of losing everything… of loosing my connection to who I am and to what I am. 

No one understand me.. no one tries.. Why? Why should they.. why should anyone care… afterall I'm just a replacement for the one who came before me.

Stumbling forward tears blurring my eyes I stop suddenly in front of the well. How well I know the way, I didn't even realize I had come back. I stare ahead, my gaze almost blank. Go back and reestablish my connections. Open them, instead of permanently sealing them, so that I will not have an empty life.. so that I will not be what I am.. God I have to stop shutting out my family, my school my life… I am HIGURASHI KAGOME, a 15 year old highschool student, I live at temple.. I am a normal girl.. A NORMAL GIRL!!!

My voice inside my mind is silent after that emotion scream and the emptiness of that silence mocks me. No, I am not a normal high school student nor am I connected any longer to my home and my past…

I look at my hands and stare at them. Different. I am different… and alone. Dropping my arms down on the well, I bury my face against the wood. I am alone.

"Kagome…"

Lifting my head up and jerking it around, I am shocked to see him standing there, watching me with his…

~Inuyasha~ God I know what he must be must thinking..

__

Kagome has run off on me again.. why is she always doing this to me.. why can't she stay put....

I makes me angry. Angry that I am not more than a puppet, but a replacement for the one the he wanted before. I am not some toy doll that is to be played with, brushed and petted before putting back into the treasure chest. I am not here for his whims.. that was not what I was born for. This I my life. This wretched empty life and I chose what to do with it. 

I turned my face away from his, rubbing my eyes until they hurt. "I wasn't.." But why bother, he never believes me anyways and my voice sounds horrible as my tears on my cheeks look so I stopped.

  
He hasn't moved, hasn't breathed since uttering my name.

__

~what, what now?~

I lift up my legs until I'm seated over the well. I placed them so that I can slide in at a moment notice.

"Kagome?"

His voice stops me again and I paused. "Inuyasha?"

There's a flutter of sound and suddenly I feel his breath so close to my neck as he grips me from behind. "Don't leave me... don't leave me …alone."

Alone!

The word grates heavy along my nerves. He's alone too. Alone like me, alone without…

"You have Kikyo." I know the words are hard and cold. But I don't have it in me to play the passive fool anymore… I expected him to get angry and push me away as he always does when I say something like that, but instead his grip on me tightens. 

"Kagome." There is pain in his voice, pain at what I caused him to feel, by saying her name, but I lost everything in choosing him… and he has Kikyo now. I am alone... alone more than he will be. "Go to her. How can I compare to someone who is dead."

"Stop this Kagome." His breath is heavy against my ears as he holds on for dear life.

"Stop …this?"

"I won't let go of you. I'll never let you go."

  
"I belong to myself, let me go."

"No! You belong to me!"

I stare and blink, stunned at the possessiveness in his voice and the way his arms hold on and won't let go. "You don't own me.." I stopped too late realizing he hadn't meant it to sound like the way I had mistaken it for. It wasn't ownership, but connection. 

"Kagome… What do I have without-?"

"Kikyo."

"Fuck, will you stop that…"

He's angry and he spins me around so quickly that I get a bit dizzy. "Kikyo is not you. Kagome is Kagome… and I don't want anyone other then you."

"You kissed her."

He's taken off guard, but quickly recovers. "She kissed me."

I go quiet and look away.

"That's it, isn't it, Kagome?"

I look a bit sulky and mumbled out slowly, "No."

"Liar." Jerking me into his arms he places a passionate kiss against my mouth surprising me at how warm and full of life he is. I stand there startled, stunned, with wide gaping eyes. "Where you go... I will follow. Please let me follow you."

"Inuyasha…"  



	2. Connection 2

I stare at him, my eyes wide, my breath hanging in my throat as his warm lips press against mine

(Author's Note: I'm not quite sure how this will match the first chapter… but since it connects to the ideas in part one.. I'm going to include this as part 2 and not a stand alone.(also I'm using ~ ~ to indicate thought..) August 25, 2001.

Connection 2

By Yashira

I stare at him, my eyes wide and luminous, my breath hanging hard in my throat as his warm lips press firmly against mine. ~Inuyasha…~

~Where I go he follows? Can that be true… is it true what he…~ I shake my head and stare at him nearly ashamed at how cold my eyes have turned. "No, I don't believe you… you promised to protect _her_… to BE with her always... and I .. I will not be second to her... I WILL NOT... I DON'T DERSERVE THAT!!!" God I'm screaming now! My voice echoing through the night as if it were a fire siren. I'm yelling at someone I wanted to spend my life with, someone I wanted to…to have… love me back…. 

How do I get into situations like this? I love so much, I fall so hard and I'm thrown over like yesterday's garbage. It is a horrible feeling to have someone you love, someone you wanted to give your whole heart to, turn you aside for a copy; a mere facsimile of what is truly waiting for them. I take a deep breath and try to steady my nerves as I realize for the first time, that I've seen it wrong. I'm not the copy, Kikyo is. This demon born out of ash and revenge, just a shade of the real Kikyo, is the copy. But, but... He is still drawn to her; drawn to what she represents. It is to that which I can not compete with.

And it is frustrating... so damn bloody frustrating! I want to open his eyes, I want to make him see what she is really like, but he refuses to see it. He seems to takes the huge blinders he already wears and glues them tighter to his eyes. He knows as well as I, how wrong it is to follow her. He knows who he should be with. He knows who really loves him and who is just using him, and yet… he goes to her. He goes to the one who wants him dead.

I catch his voice out of the corner of my ears and look up to see him staring at me. 

"Damn it woman, aren't you even listening to me? Don't you ever listen to me?" He stares at me with gold tinted eyes studded in anger, "I came here after you… came here following you! And I kissed you!"

I take a breath and turn away from him, my face sullen, my eyes downcast. I refuse to answer him.

"Oi, Kagome...." his voice has calmed a bit and he lifts a hand to reach and touch my shoulder. I jerk away as if he has sunk his claws into me and the hurt look in his face is almost enough for me to tell him I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. Almost enough….

No.. I can't.. I can't God forgive me, but I CAN'T!!! I can not be second to her.. I will not be second.. ~Because I'm always second choice.. I'm always second because they always think I'll be there for them, but that doesn't make it right. It never makes it right to put people on shelves as if they have no other purpose, but to serve your whims~

He stares at me, his white hair flowing in the night breeze as his words go deceptively soft, "So that's how it is…"

"It's how you wanted it.." I retorted coldly, "You pushed me away.. you cast me off.. YOU HURT ME!!!" No, god please don't let me cry, I can't, I won't.. no no.. stop it!!! Tears blur my eyes, falling like rivulets over my red cheeks. "I can't deal with this.. I don't want to deal with this…" 

Broken connection… it HURTS!! I feel like my chest is swollen and on fire. I feel nauseated and sick to my stomach. Is this what heartbreak is? Is this horrible feeling that's keeping me from eating and sleeping the result of having him break my heart?"

"Kagome.. please.. don't go.." his words are broken and full of emotion as he just stares at me. "Don't go away.." 

"I have to…" I sit back on the well and throw my legs over it, "I can not stand seeing her use you.. I can not stand… you going to her.. I can't stand throwing my life away for someone who doesn't even value that I do it!" ~I can't stand being ignored.. I can't stand having my love thrown in my face.. I can't stand loosing what I am… what I was... to be with you when you want her instead- 

I slid forward and let myself fall into the well to where my world waits... to where my family and friends, if god is willing, will let me take back. Leaving this behind, leaving this connection broken, I slid- 

His arms caught me sharply, dragging me back, pulling me roughly to where he was. "Kagome… are you trying to make me choose... choose between you and Kikyo?"

"Inuyasha.. let me-" 

I'm spun around in his arms, spun so fast and hard, that I'm on my back on the ground in mere seconds. His body rests over mine to keep me from moving. "I said I wouldn't let you go… I'm not going to give you up.. damn it.. I'll never give you up." 

I stare up into his fiery eyes and cry out, "YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH! YOU CAN'T."

He stares down at me, his hair sliding forward to hide his eyes, "Kagome.." his voice his cracking and he sounds as if he's about to wept. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Why am I .. doing this?" I just gawk at him. "WHY? As if I STARTED this?" I choke back a sob and turn my face away. The way he's pinned me down, I can't really move much else. "Why do you hate me so much to blame me on this.. I only wanted you to love me.." ~Me.. only me..~ 

He swings his eyes up and there are genuine tears running down his cheeks. "I have a duty to her.. she's not who I love.. it is duty.. I have to…" He ducks down and kisses me, "Kagome, I don't hate you… Kagome.."

"Inuyasha…" 


	3. Connection 3

"Kagome…" His voice is hoarse, almost restless, as his breath, because his mouth is mere inches from mine, fans softly against my lips. "Please stay... don't leave (me)... you promised to be by my side…"

The words hurt so badly; they tear me apart from the inside out. It's like a mockery of my feelings… a ploy almost to make me forget my whole purpose, my whole resolve, of what I thought to accomplish today. When have I become so heartless... so horrible? If it wasn't for Kikyo this wouldn't be happening, but that's like saying if it wasn't for the sun we would be forever in night… things happen, it's like cause and effect… they can't be changed. To change a single tread of time is like to change a small grain of sand. It may seem unimportant or useless, but sometimes one speck affects a million others… one speck is the difference between life and death... hatred and love... Kikyo and Kagome. I cast my brown eyes up at him, blinking in surprise, perhaps a grain of sand can not be changed, but the course… its current course does not have to follow the same path. 

My voice is a quiver, it seems to float in the recesses of my mind, as if coalescing from out of nowhere. "Inuyasha," I whispered softly, my heart shattering with the weight of my words, "I.. I…I don't want to see you any more." 

It's almost as if I can hear the world gasping, shaking and shattering to a million pieces to come spinning wildly around my shoulders. In mere moments the fallen rush of silence, so much heart-wrenching silence, collapses between him and me. It's like I've walked into the street and have just a moment to turn and see the huge bus about to crush the life from me. 

"KAGOME, NO!" He cries out my name, his hands holding onto my shoulders as if he could force this refusal back into my very being. "You DON'T know what you're saying!!!"

"It's time I go…" I've known this moment in my heart, I knew it was coming, but I never wanted to accept it. I wanted to be with him, I wanted to stay with him so badly that I deluded myself that he could simply loved me completely. Why could this time not be different... why did I let myself think it could be? "You know I have to go…" ~I can't live like this any more… I can't be second… not to her… not any longer~

"You don't know what you're saying... you can't... CAN'T leave me." His voice is almost like a child, the pain and heartbreak surprise me, but they do not stay my trembling words and thoughts. Until he can clearly push aside the imitation, until he can accept the truth between us, we can never be as we were meant to be. "I told you I loved you…"

Red cheeks and eyes, I look away and say nothing. He left me first... he left me a long time ago. I can't compete with Kikyo... I can't ever compete with someone who is dead. She followed him to the afterlife, and he will end up following her. What can I say to that? No amount of him pulling me into his arms and kissing me will change that. No amount of 'I love you,' will either. This isn't a game; it's real! My feelings are real! It's not some sort of guesswork where a few token words can win over my support and love… why can't he understand that?!!!

…And

Afterall, didn't he and Kikyo share a kiss first, hug first, had a promise of a life before me… Saying such simple things when he's played this game really hurts me… and I hate it. "Mo, STOP IT, INUYASHA.. don't make me say I hate you.. don't!"

I'm astonished with myself, and I can see the shock in his eyes. "Kagome.." he rasped softly and then abruptly, he's on his feet, his hand reached for my arm as he jerks me upright. "So… we're really breaking up now…" His voice is almost flat, emotionless, and I can tell he's shutting himself up again.

~Inuyasha…~ I want to tell him, ~There is no way I can follow you…~ Yet my eyes drift away from his, my voice rebels and is silence. There is nothing to describe this heartache… nothing… I wish I could be so simple minded… so simple and be like that girl who had waited for his return to the well only to say she would stay in the background and support him. Why can't I be like that girl again? Why do I suddenly demand so much?

Or is it, I've realize, that I don't demand enough?

It wasn't enough. To stand with him, is NOT enough… how could I think it was? Because I missed him, because I loved him and I wanted to be with him always… not only as his support, but as the woman he would love and protect. But Kikyo followed him into death and she would have him follow her into death... I wanted him to live... I want him to follow me into life. Perhaps that was where all this stemmed from… his inability to choose life… to fully choose me… 

My eyes drift away from his, my voice heavy and boarding on something indescribable. "Sayonara, Inuyasha…"

"What about the shards," he whispered hoarsely his eyes once more hidden by his hair. 

"They are in my backpack.. you can have them…" It's amazing how easy my voice says that… _In my backpack.. you can have them…_ I dip over the well's edge and within moments I'm gone. 

The flutter of life that connects me to him… 

…has…

…completely…

…shattered.

__

Sayonara Inuyasha… Good bye…


	4. Connection 4

February 3-4, 2002

By Yashira

(Author's Note: Here's a twist, can you see what it is?)

Connection 4

My breath hangs in my throat like an offending sigh as I stand here unable to breathe. The darkness surrounds me, lays suffocating arms over my body as I stagger forward, my gaze rooted to the well with unfaltering eyes. Gone… through the well… _Gone_…

The link through the fabric of time which connects me to her world, stands out in front of me with a silence that weighs heavy on my throbbing heart. I can't help, but stare, can't help but look down at this construction of wood and dirt… can't help, but wonder how this situation could ever have come to pass. How…how can she be gone? Gone without measure.

Why? Why is this happening to me? It's not fair! It's not right! But… But… 

I have to remember that it is my fault.

Gah, I hate taking the blame for something like this. I hate taking the blame for anything, period. It's better for me to swear and curse, to turn around and bodily destroy with my razor sharp claws then to say those simple words, "It's my fault, please forgive me."

Because… 

It opens up a part of me I do not wish others to see. It is very easy to have your life gutted and wrenched to pieces; to have it judged by the very world that births you so that all you feel is the mere worthlessness that is yourself. I've been sneered, mocked, poked fun, insulted, people took advantage of me, slapped, kicked, and even my own brother tried to killed me and this alone was just a mere fraction of what I went through as a child. And I was so very young when most of this happened… so young.

I learned what hatred and disgust was like. I learned it with their brutal venomous words, sickly sharply swords, and blunted stones as if I were the exact thing, the very problem in their wretched disgraceful life, that they could blame. I became the burden... the very scapegoat they needed because I was different. Easily marked, clearly betrayed by my _heritage…_ a monster... a youkai... a hanyou. 

I've been betrayed and ridiculed so often within the confines of this wretched life that it's purely instinct which shuts me off from them except… with Kagome, it had been difficult. 

I could be myself with her and she would accept it without question. She wasn't afraid of who I was, of what I am, and she, of anyone here, especially regarding her background, had the most to fear from me. They don't have youkai in her distant country, so seeing my demonic form should have been terrifying, but no! She was, at most, curious, inquisitive, and interested… in me.

There were so many times when my heart would just stop at the thought of her turning away from me. So many times I thought she'd find either my blood, my personality, the very essence _that is_ me, offensive and repulsive. I feared it so much that I tried to make it easy for her to despise me, but no this girl reached out to me instead. She reached out to me! And how did I repay her?

With Doubt… with pain... and with words that are meaningless. Because I am so unable to choose her, choose life, choose the one I love because another irreplaceable duty binds me to someone else. The one... I love? Do I love her?

My heart patters hard in my chest and I lean over the well as if I can't stand any more. How much this feeling hurts? When did it come up so suddenly? What measure do I owe my life to Kagome... too? Oh gods, I'm torn… even now I'm torn! I know I should turn away from the well, go back to the others until it is time for Kikyo to take me to hell, but not this time... this time I can't move…

The foreboding depths of the well stare up at me accusingly as if daring me to make some vital choice that my heart is unable to articulate. Why must I choose this path? What goals hold me here? What is my future? I stop and take a deep heavy breath, trying to calm my jumbled thoughts, and failing miserably.

"Do I even have a future?" My words echo softly into the hollow recesses of the well, echoing back accusingly in low rumbles as I stare within with gold eyes pained beyond redemption. 

I can't feel anything now. I am like nothingness, an emptiness that is leeched from the heart of the soul to seep into the hard ruthless ground. I feel like parts of me are flowing away into oblivion. Am I dying?

Kikyo… 

Kagome…

Both the same and yet so infinitely different.

My fingers trace over my lips, my eyes shadowed by my white hair, as I stare at the cold forbidding night around me. Is this what I am facing? Is this my future…? A space without a voice, a hollowness without a heart, an embrace without her?

__

Ka… 

What is it about her that fills my thoughts so completely that I can not let go. Why, why, why!? She's inside me like a drug, and I can't break the addiction to get rid of her. I can't break it, because I don't want to break it. I can't function anymore; I can't go on... she's… I need her to come back. 

__

Ka...go... 

I kissed her and yet with these same hands I shoved her away. How do I manage to do these horrible things? I thought that was what she wanted from me, I was desperate, she was going.. I had to stop her. It was a reaction without thinking, but I would never take it back… If only I could feel her near my side again… what would I give to bring her back to me.

__

Ka…go...me…

There's has to be something more! It can't end like this! Not like this! But what is this unholy dread that cleaves at my soul? Fear, betrayal, guilt? The more I think about it, the more it seems that that must be so. I knew Kikyo first, my life belongs to her for she is MY Kikyo, so I must do what is right, what is honourable and yet... Kagome… her face fills my thoughts and her body hunts my dreams in endless taunts. Can this be real? Can this fancy thought be any less true? Kagome, who waited for me, Kagome who cried for me, Kagome who I hurt so badly that she had to leave… _Kagome…_

__

MY KAGOME!

I stare back at the village, my gaze narrowing in frustration, as I look hungrily into the well again. It's almost as if it's laughing at me, but it is not possessed, yet the very thought grates on my nerves. What must I do, Kagome? What must I do? 

Throwing back my head, letting out a fierce cry that splits the air like tremendous thunderclaps, I leap forward with hair flying wildly around my shoulders. 

Kagome, I can't choose, but I can't... I can't let it be like this either!

With the blue light that surrounds me, I find myself disappearing into the infinity of this well.

__

I will not let it end like this.


	5. Connection 5

April 25, 2002

By Yashira

(Author's note. To prevent confusion, when you come to a block of text that's entirely in italics, that's someone's else thoughts. *wink, wink* Let me know what you think of this chapter. J Thanks for the reviews, I needed it to be pushed along. J )

Connection 5

If I were to tell you what I feel, would you believe me? Would you understand the words? The medium? The very essence that I'm trying to convey. 

I…

Feel….

Terrifying emptiness.

A hollowness that is so stretched beyond feeling and emotion that it snaps when the slightest of pressures pushes down on it. A rift, a chasm… an overwhelming sense of space that engulfs me and shatters my dying heart into broken fragments… like the Shikon no Kakera that I used to search out with _him_. I can not cross this pit of despair. For fear or denial, this distance between us grows. I can form no lasting bridges. I can make no firm connections. I can not _ever_ offer that false sense of hope I once held to see your face again. 

Everything is broken.

Pieces of my life are like cracked remains of broken glass laid scattered around me. In each facet, like a mirror's eye, they distort and throw back accusing images of a lover's embrace and a girl- a girl all alone- watching from a grievous distance. Abruptly I cry out, as my fingers bleed from where I've cut myself when I thoughtlessly reached for one such fragment of glass. That was foolish of me and careless. Like a broken piece of glass that can no longer form itself anew, I can NOT have what I see. I can not take what I want. I can not come between him and Kikyo. It is….

__

Forbidden. 

I knew it from the start and I foolishly turned a blind eye because in my weakness, with that heart that loves so unconditionally, I could not simply leave him. I wanted what I could not have. I followed with hopes that I could be with him _and_ be happy… but I was miserable. I was so horribly miserable and I constantly felt as if someone was trying to wrench my insides out with a dull pair of pliers. Each and every day, it cut at my heart that I could not be the one to make him happy… that his mind and his thoughts were always on the one who came before. This love I felt for him, this love that still beats inside me… hasn't died, but I ca not be there any more for him. This pain was too much to handle and I'm only 15. I'm not even out of school, I'm not old enough to drink, I'm not even old enough to drive. It wasn't right to keep me feeling this way… it wasn't right!

And like a solid piece of glass I broke myself to sever our connection. 

Pieces of him and me… reflections of what we were, what was, and what could have been are no longer relevant. He stood there when I told him I was leaving, his face shielded by his white hair, and HE LET ME CROSS over the well. He knew what would have stopped me… he _knew_ and he let me go anyway. He let me go… and thus his choice was made.

God, I want his face to leave my thoughts. I wish it so hard that I can hear myself crying in my dreams even now because his face… I _still_ long for it! I don't want it to go on anymore! I don't want to see his face haunting my dreams when I can't wake up next to him. Yet, I can not stop searching for him, because in my dreams he stays with me. In my dreams he chooses me, chooses life… in my dreams he's _mine. _

…but when I wake up.. I wake to a nightmare. 

Nothing is the same any more. This chasm… this rift which I made to protect myself, to keep me from calling his name, goes on for miles uncounted. It snaps and twists if I so much as try to stretch out my trembling hand. It can not be mended because this is a rift formed by my pain and fear. It is so immense that I do not believe that it is ever possible to connect the two sides. I do not _dare_ to want to connect the two sides. It would have been better to be…

Alone. 

What was that saying? _Better to have loved and lost and never to have loved at all? _The person who coined that phrase was an idiot. I hate this feeling. It is better never to have loved at all if all I'm going to feel is a shivering emptiness so horrifying that it clings to the roots of my very being and won't let go. This feeling bleaches out what little remains of my festering broken heart… why did I ever allow my self to care? … to love? 

Because I am human. It is my nature to care, to nurture, to reach out… It is my nature to love… someone who can not love in return.

__

Fear. Abandonment… betrayal? I'm suddenly terrified. I've crossed the distance of time and space and yet I'm anxious. Kagome came here! She came home because she –had to- wanted to get away… from me? My nerve fails me and my body aches with unknown trepidation. Do I truly know what needs to be done … what needs to be…

I stop, frozen on this side of the well, my limbs paralyzed as if someone has reached down and chained me with the strongest of metals. I have never felt fear like this before. It's so mind numbing, so mind consuming, and so overwhelming that it will not let go of me. I came here for her? Yes… I must keep telling myself, but why am I frozen? Why this sudden foreboding?

I turn over in my bed, hugging my pillow close to my shivering body, as I open my eyes slowly. Wasted tears, even now, have slid down my damp cheeks and the pillow is salted with them. My heart still hurts from those words… my heart still beats its shattered dance. _You know I must go…._ I told him that and the scary part is that I meant it. I meant every word I said. I rather be alone and that's the awful truth. Better alone then with those who are not truly there. They hide in shadows, like false painted figures whose true colours show only when the rain pours down. 

I think I was put on this earth to be a watcher… a waiter… someone who sees, but can not touch… someone who longs, but can not have. I'm not here to be loved… I'm here to be his support and if that's so then I'm just here to be alone… _alone…_

__

It's so easy to say it to myself that I want her to come back, that I want to see her smiling face, but when I try to tell that to her… When I try to tell myself that's what she wants to hear, I find out that's not enough. How could I fool myself thinking that was enough? BUT THEN, WHAT DOES SHE WANT? SHE WANTS... 

Me.

__

I can not… I am unable to… give that…

I stop outside her window, staring up at the tree that I usually climb in from. Kagome… I swallow as if I can't breathe and I stagger against the tree as if someone as punched me in the stomach and tore up my body with razor sharp claws. Frozen! I can't MOVE! Where went my resolve…? Where went the conviction that I must get her back, must bring her home? Why can't I climb up the tree to her room? 

If I go up there and she says she "hates" me and tells me to go away, what will I do? 

But I can't let end it like this. I know I'm a coward when it comes to this stuff and that I let it drag on, but if I love her I must let it end properly. I must allow it to end… I must…

… climb this tree.


	6. Connection 6

August 4, 2002 –November 30, 2002 

(Author Note: This is the last part which I hope concludes the six parts. *looks innocent*)

Connection 6

By Yashira

With a rush of unspoken dread, I feel a momentary numbness twist the pit of my stomach as if it, turning me inside out, would disembowel me in a heartbeat. 

Why now? 

Why so suddenly do I hesitate again as I stand outside Kagome's open window? All around me lies the blue black veil of night, but it settles around my shoulders like a suffocating hood. There isn't even so much as a gentle finger-breath of warmth for the cold darkness robs me of all my determined conviction like a leech infested pool seeking a hot blooded host in which to suck dry all life-giving blood. I'm filled with trepidation for the very thing I came to do! The mere reason why I'm standing here by her window now beckons me to run instead and to hide like that parasitic flea Myoga, and I don't know what galls me more: The thought of running away, or having these thoughts that force me to confront her. 

I don't want to do this and yet I can't let it go on. If the wound isn't properly treated the patient gets worse instead of better. If I don't bandage this bleeding hurt or sever the limb that's keeping me in pain, how can I ever hope to be at peace with myself… or is it that I don't want to get better? Can I actually like being torn in two? I choose not to answer that question, but instead clench my lips together. This isn't about me more than it is about what I've done to her… I can't let this go on for her sake. If I have any feelings for her, I will not let it drag on anymore.

I glance back over the way I've come, but the tree behind me lends a windswept shield of leaves which invade my line of sight so that I can only see glimmers of street lamps blinking forlornly in the distance. For one brief moment I wish for light, something bright and sympathetic to disquiet the lurching in my gut; it would be far better than standing here on her window ledge alone than in the condemning dark as I wonder just how much time I have before I make that irrevocable choice.

Not a choice, but a decision.

__

THE decision.

I was stupid thinking that I could come here without making that kind of decision after all. Foolish really if I thought I could bring her back with mere force? Force doesn't change people's wills nor can it bind their thoughts to your own. It can only subdue them and give a false sense of acquiescence, but I know that deep down it would not change the pain I've placed in her…. In my self as well. And yet…

WHAT AM I THINKING?!

That's exactly what goaded me to action. I was thinking to do just that. Gods!! Would I just physically pick her up and manhandled her all the way to the well and then jam a rock into it? I'd get osuwari 50 times before I could make it even an inch of the way. I must really be stupid because I, even now, am still contemplate performing parts of that plan. What the fuck am I thinking? What am I doing?

A cat cries and the occasional barking of a dog as it comes nears jars me back to my senses as I realize that all I am simply doing is nothing, but… procrastinating. I snort and inwardly curse as the overwhelming and depressing night again narrows down around me. And then…

I smell it.

… Kagome's smell. 

__

Kagome's. 

Her smell is everywhere! It fills my nostrils as if I'm suddenly overcome with hay fever, but I don't have the symptoms of sneezing and red eyes that go along with it. No, my symptoms are different… they are much worst. Kagome's smell lingers like the proverbial dust that clings to ones shoes. It's all over the place. No amount of soap and water could remove this smell save perhaps a natural disaster of fire. The thought of water and Kagome's smell only makes me feel worse.

Water doesn't hide her scent, it just makes it that much more… pronounce. It's a sort of sweet cloying smell that when wet it pulls at my heighten senses making me feel like a man whose drank to much sake for the first time in his life. It teases my nostrils with such raw and yet fragile emotions combined in one that even now I have a bit of trouble breathing. 

In that short time that we've been apart I can tell that she's taken a bath. I can tell by the quality of change in the air. If you ever smelled the annoying redwood or cedar when it's wet, it's like that… pungent and all scent consuming.

I shake my white haired head, trying desperately not to think on the smell and to bring my thoughts on those of her family instead. I can smell them too, but not like I can smell her. Damn it, I did it again. I have to push this sweet tantalizing odor out of my mind… it's distracting me. Quickly I try to pick out the weaker scents and yes… the scent of her little brother, her grandfather and even her mother tickle through the air like an annoying whine, but they do very little as quench that which I know is Kagome. 

__

Kagome.

My fingers slid against the rough wood of the window frame as I set my feet inside. The sound of bare feet against her floor echoes dully as I make my landing. I have never thought how foolish it is for her to leave this window open until now and it makes me wonder why she is careless. Did she expect me to come for her? Was it one last hope or is it my foolish wishes taking control of my feeble will even now? 

With deceiving calmness I trace quiet footsteps, taking the last leg of my journey, to where she lays unsuspecting asleep and for a moment I feel jarred out of time again as I am reminded again that her world is so much different than mine. It's another reminder in a flood of many. Her sheets are washed and clean and I can smell some exotic fruit which lingers with the freshness. Her bed, her very room, are so much different than the land, the very time, in which I live that my frozen thoughts lurk forward after a moment hesitation. 

~Kagome~ 

My thoughts surge back and forth between terror and trepidation which echoes the mismatched dancing steps of erratic heart beats. It is so easy to run away… so easy to turn and jump back down into the well and go running with my tail between my legs. YES! It is so easy to forget this tangled web that ensnares me to the quick with so simply the word… Kagome.

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What about Kikyou?

Her name cuts my memory to the quick because my heart forgets not a sound made on that precious moment when I first met her. The moment our bright eyes met, the very second she looked with those sad dear eyes that dared to dream and wish to be normal… It is that moment that I can not forget and which haunts me even now. Her memory makes my heart stagger and I can feel the irregular heart taps thumping against my chest which threaten to swallow me whole. But does this feeling come from a beloved memory or from her dreaded existence now, a mere mockery of life and dirt that isn't truly Kikyou and yet…

That mockery of life, that puppet of ash, dirt and mud, still has her original memories and feelings. That demonic puppet which is Kikyou was endowed so well that I find it too easy to overlook the fact that her body is molded of just earth and clay. I can not forget that in all that I say and do, but although I do share a memory with Kikyou which stirs my soul, have I forgotten about the life I share with Kagome? That's the difference then. Past. Present. Dead. Alive. They are like night and day and yet the soul… isn't it the same?

And the answer I keep coming back to is one I desperately do not wish to open my ears to. It's that simple because even though I know they may have shared the same soul, I also realize that they do not share the same state of mind… Is it because they are different that I find it so hard to let go and choose one and only one? 

Because if I choose one…

… if I made such a choice…

I must then forsake the other. 

I swallow as if I'm suddenly struck dumb. Choosing one means that I loose regardless. Both parts of me belong to Kagome and Kikyou and if I am to pick one, then I am going to tear half of my already bleeding heart apart. Choosing one means that there is no way I can come back to the other… if I make a mistake… it will be irrevocable to correct.

How horribly selfish I've become, and yet… I can't stop wanting them both. I can't stop wanting to delay this choice because I just DON'T want to let go of either of them. "Kagome…" I whispered softly, knowing that in her fevered sleep she does not yet know I am here. "Kagome…"

My heart lurches as I wait between one moment of discovery and that terrible instant of that comes before that. In that instant of waiting… in that very moment of self-realized fear, the very question that had haunted me during the whole time I've been here, "What right do I have to Kagome?" floats in my very thoughts. 

She is my future and yet it is a future I dare not grasp. If I can not take what would rightfully give me peace, do I even have any semblance of hope that I even belong in Kagome's life? …in her future… in mine… Kikyou is my past, I know that well enough and Kagome is my future, I know that too. And yet, the future after tonight is so uncertain that even now I bite at my lips as if to make my calling of her name something that had never happened. 

Don't wake up, I seem to say as I trod back towards the window as silently as a cat. I am a hypocritical fool and a coward. I can see it now. I never wanted it to come to this and even now I wish for some way that time can stay her hand and give me the moment I first beheld her. I can't do this after all. For all that bravado that had pushed me forward, it fades when I stand in her presence. 

In truth, what I feel now is the insurmountable flood of fear. 

Yeah, me, the great Inuyasha! I'm terrified of this one girl. I'm terrified because she already said good bye to me once… if she said it again….

Something wet slides down my eyes and I rub it away with the self same annoyance which I used to keep anyone who tries to get close to me. How would Miroku handle this? I'd guess he'd joke about it and then use his hands on approach before getting thoroughly slapped for it. But the thing is... I am NOT Miroku... I am not anyone else but me… 

I move towards her for what may be the last time and I lean in, my lips brushing her forehead softly, as my fingers run through her black hair. I whisper soft words meant for her ears alone before I slip back out the window to disappear into the blackness of the night outside. 

Sometimes the best choice is just to simply let go…


End file.
